Part 6 (2/2)
This time he spread one of her hands palm upward on his own larger one.
He looked down at it tenderly and stroked it as he talked.
”It is because there is no time. Things pour in upon us. We don't know what is before us. We can only be sure of one thing--that it may be death or wounds. I don't know when they'll think me ready to be sent out--or when they'll be ready to send me and other fellows like me. But I shall be sent. I am sitting in a garden here with you. I'm a young chap and big and strong and I love life. It is my duty as a man to go and kill other young chaps who love it as much as I do. And they must do their best to kill me, 'Gott strafe England,' they're saying in Germany--I understand it. Many a time it's in me to say, 'Gott strafe Germany.'”
He drew in his breath sharply, as if to pull himself together, and was still a moment. The next he turned upon her his wonderful boy's smile.
Suddenly there was trusting appeal in it.
”You don't mind my holding your hand and talking like this, do you? Your eyes are as soft as--I've seen fawns cropping among the primroses with eyes that looked like them. But yours _understand_. You don't mind my doing this?” he kissed her palm. ”Because there is no time.”
Her free hand caught at his sleeve.
”No,” she said. ”You're going--you're _going_!”
”Yes,” he answered. ”And you wouldn't hold me back.”
”No! No! No! No!” she cried four times, ”Belgium! Belgium! Oh! Belgium!”
And she hid her eyes on his sleeve.
”That's it--Belgium! There has been war before, but this promises from the outset to be something else. And they're coming on in their millions. We have no millions--we have not even guns and uniforms enough, but we've got to stop them, if we do it with our bare hands and with walls of our dead bodies. That was how Belgium held them back. Can England wait?”
”You can't wait!” cried Robin. ”No man can wait.”
How he glowed as he looked at her!
”There. That shows how you understand. See! That's what draws me. That's why, when I saw you through the window, I had to follow you. It wasn't only your lovely eyes and your curtains of eyelashes and because you are a sort of rose. It is you--you! Whatsoever you said, I should know the meaning of, and what I say you will always understand. It's as if we answered each other. That's why I never forgot you. It's why I waked up so when I saw you at the d.u.c.h.ess'.” He tried to laugh, but did not quite succeed. ”Do you know I have never had a moment's real rest since that night--because I haven't seen you.”
”I--” faltered Robin, ”have wondered and wondered--where you were.”
All the forces of nature drew him a little nearer to her--though the gardener who clumped past them dully at the moment only saw a particularly good-looking young soldier, apparently engaged in agreeable conversation with a pretty girl who was not a nursemaid.
”Did you come here because of that?” he asked with frank anxiety. ”Do you come here often and was it just chance? Or did you come because you were wondering?”
”I didn't exactly know--at first. But I know now. I have not been here since I went to live in Eaton Square,” she gave back to him. Oh! how good and beautiful his asking eyes were! It was as he drew even a little nearer that he saw for the first time the p.r.i.c.ked lilac leaves lying on the bench beside her.
”Did you do those?” he said suddenly quite low. ”Did you?”
”Yes,” as low and quite sweetly unashamed. ”You taught me--when we played together.”
The quick emotion in his flus.h.i.+ng face could scarcely be described.
”How lovely--how _lovely_ you are!” he exclaimed, almost under his breath. ”I--I don't know how to say what I feel--about your remembering.
You little--little thing!” This last because he somehow strangely saw her five years old again.
It was a boy's unspoiled, first love making--the charming outburst of young pa.s.sion untrained by familiar use to phrases. It was like the rising of a Spring freshet and had the same irresistible power.
”May I have them? Will you give them to me with your own little hand?”
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